Page 88 of Ink's Devil

“My mother.” Or that’s where she’d thought I’d been. Quite truthfully, she’ll be able to cover for me, I’m sure. Or at least, perhaps I better start praying that she does.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mace

Cad had managed to pull up the driver’s permit photo of Connor Foster and has sent it to our phones. At least we’ll be able to recognise the motherfucker. There is definitely a familial resemblance to Beth. Facial features, that is—his hair is blond, not bright blue.

As predicted, the storm moved off, temperatures have risen overnight, and the forecast looks promising enough that we can take our bikes. It’s late afternoon by the time we arrive in Denver, and we draw up in an almost empty country park on the outskirts. The crash truck pulls up behind us, and out jumps Pal carefully carrying his and Cad’s most recent acquisition, the drone.

“What’s the range of that thing?” Beef asks him, his eyes critically examining what looks like little more than a toy.

“It’s limited by battery power and the time it can stay in the air,” Pal informs him. “What’s more important is that the warehouse is a quarter of a mile away from here, so for our purpose, it can easily get there and back, and I can have some time to fly it around to check the lay of the land and what’s going on.”

“What do you need to control it?” I ask, noticing Pal’s not carrying a control device.

Pal grins and pulls out his phone. “I just use this.”

A fucking app. Who’d have believed it?Well I suppose there’s one for everything now.

“I’ll get it set up. I’m using here as the home point it will automatically return to, should I lose contact for some reason. I’ve already programmed in the coordinates of the warehouse. I’ll get it in the air while we’ve still got some light.”

Pal looks excited, it’s the first time he’s using his new toy in a real situation. For me, it’s anti-climactic when, without fanfare, the drone lifts smoothly into the air, rises above the trees, then disappears behind them.

Pal’s attention now switches to his phone. Looking over I’m impressed by the quality of the image as the drone flies over the park and out across the landscape. It’s not long before it reaches its destination and the warehouse appears below. I have to admit I’m impressed and already thinking how useful this shit is.

“That’s the place.” Looking over Pal’s shoulder, Beef points to the screen. It’s easy to recognise from the Google images Cad had pulled up and shown us back in Pueblo, but now we can home in on the detail. It’s small, hardly worthy to be called a warehouse but must have been useful for someone at some time. What it’s being used for now is of more interest. At first glance it would appear not much, it’s almost derelict. But that could be a cover of course.

“No cars or trucks.” Pal sounds disappointed.

“None?” Beef takes the phone for a moment and examines it. “Could they have parked inside?”

Pal takes it back from the VP, then taps and slides his finger across the screen. After a couple of minutes, he informs us, “No loading bay they could have driven into. I’ve circled the whole of the outside.”

“Doesn’t mean no one’s there,” observes Hell. “Could be they’ve left people behind, dropping them off then picking them up to hide what they’re up to.”

“Or, it’s not a base at all. Just somewhere he used to make the calls from in case they were able to be tracked. Look at that.” Thunder points to the device Pal’s holding. “It looks abandoned to me.”

Fuck. I smash one fist into my other palm. “Wild goose chase. There’s nothing there.” Frustrated I pull out my cigarettes. Liz is the only other person to take one though I offer them around. “What’s the plan?” I ask the VP. “Go to the dad’s place instead?”

“I still think we need to check it out.” Beef frowns. “I’ve known meth labs set up in places like this. Just because it looks abandoned doesn’t mean it is and could be a disguise. Maybe if we go in we won’t find anything, but what we do know is that Connor was there yesterday. There may be something we can find.”

“If Beth’s brother was hurt, there could be blood,” Hellfire suggests. “If he’s dead, there might be some sign, or even a body.”

“And if there’s no evidence of a scuffle, he was lying through his teeth.” I state what I fully expect to find. Nothing at all.

“Hang on. Look.” Pal waves us back over to him. I finish off my cigarette, stub it out on the heel of my motorcycle boot, and pocket the end. It’s an ingrained habit not to leave evidence behind.

I glance over his shoulder. “Well, fuck me. Can you zoom in?”

Pal does, and a face of a man who shares the same bad habit as I comes into view. He’s just lit a cigarette himself.

“Not Connor.” I’ve just compared his face to the photo on my phone.

“Hey, what’s that. Under the lean-to there?” Pyro’s looking more carefully now.

“Bikes,” says Judge. “I can see two rear wheels.”

“Connor ride?” Hell asks but gets no answer. None of us know.

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